hopefully there are negotiations on going at the moment, whats would be the point in cancelling one deal if anither cannot be secured.

Heinz Big Soup-er League

45% increase in T.V audiences, Is that true? it's been a crap season.

Hope they've paid the money owed till the end of the...oh...ah.

Weren't Betfair close to becoming sponsor last time, maybe they'll take over?

Surely [isome[/i of the quoted 45% increase in TV audiences will be down to the Monday night games Sky have shown these past couple of months?

Perhaps the crap play attracted Union supporters?

Looks like I'll never get to see a Stobart Superleague truck outside an RFL event.

To be fair, i spend about 2 hours a day on the M60/M62 and i reckon i see one of the RL lorries every day.

Saw 4 in one journey the other week.

I see them pretty much every time I make a long-ish motorway journey. I can't be seeing them by chance so perhaps the most worrying thing about this whole escapade is that lots of drivers appear to be oblivious to the vehicles around them on the road!

I'm not oblivious as I see Stobart trucks on my travels all the time but have never seen a Super League one outside of an RL event.

From what I recall, the clubs voted on this deal over the offer from Betfair, so the RFL shouldn't be the one getting all of the flack here.

As for the Stobart arrangement, I wasn't a fan of it but perhaps that's more because I, as someone who works in advertising and marketing, am not particularly a fan of outdoor and passive media. It's extremely difficult to measure the effectiveness of the Stobart trucks when you have so much marketing activity running alongside it (such as any additional work by the RFL, the individual clubs or Sky TV).

Super League as a whole has really struggled to attract brands this year and I do fear that the product has been cheapened by this 'freebie'. Unlike engage Mutual, they're not sticking their name across every possible blank surface at grounds, on the referees or players and there seems to be little interest from Stobart other than wrapping some trucks in vynal. We've had problems with another partner (Elonex) and the game seems to have lost a lot of sponsors over the course of the year. Branding for Dewalt, Emirates and William Hill used to be prominant around Super League grounds - it seems to have vanished this year.

Travelling with non rl people, we passed one and I commented, look a Stobart RL truck. The other passengers did indeed take notice only for one of them to say, it's not RL, it looks like a Sky truck.

Anyhow, with the success of this campaign, we should have paying sponsors queuing at the door.

Natwest or Barclays could do worse than supporting a workingmans ( or womans) sport like rugby league, rather than the poncy rah rah, limp wristed, lardy dah, public school lot !
Or do i just have issues ?

We are often told that a good chunk of SL viewership on Sky is in London and the South East, whilst at the same time being told that the demographic is too working class to warrant blue chip sponsors.